This invention relates to egg inspecting apparatus, and more particularly to apparatus for inspecting quality of eggs without breaking them, or determining whether or not mixtures such as for instance blood are contained therein or deciding whether or not the eggs are turbid eggs, addled eggs, green eggs or moldy egg.
An egg inspecting apparatus has been proposed in which light beams having a wave length of 575 m.mu. which is absorbed by the egg blood and a wave length of 600 m.mu. which is not absorbed by the egg blood are applied to an egg to be inspected, and the light beam passing through the egg are compared with each other thereby to determined whether or not the egg contains blood. In this case, as the intensity of the light beam passing through the egg depends greatly on the egg's optical density such as the thickness or color of the egg, it is difficult to determine whether or not the egg contains blood by simply comparing the intensities of the light beams passed through the egg.
In order to overcome this difficulty, a method has been provided in which irrespective of the egg's optical density the light reception level of the light beam of 600 m.mu. (which is not absorbed by the egg blood) passed through the egg is maintained unchanged, and it is determined whether the egg contains blood by comparing this light reception signal with the light reception signal of the light beam of 575 m.mu. which is absorbed by the egg blood. However, this method also suffers from a drawback that there is a risk of erroneously determining good eggs to be addled eggs or blood-containing eggs.